WTF with Marc Maron Podcast - Episode 878 - Ta-Nehisi Coates

Episode Date: January 3, 2018

Ta-Nehisi Coates is one of America's most celebrated and insightful writers. But there's part of him that would be fine with it all going away. Marc and Ta-Nehisi talk about the impulse to pull back when things start to get good, the burden of being treated as a representative for a larger community, and the reason Ta-Nehisi finds Black Panther so relatable. They also discuss two of Ta-Nehisi's biggest influences: James Baldwin and David Carr. Sign up here for WTF+ to get the full show archives and weekly bonus material! https://plus.acast.com/s/wtf-with-marc-maron-podcast. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

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family. Be a part of Kids Night when the Toronto Rock take on the Colorado Mammoth at a special 5 p.m. start time on Saturday, March 9th at First Ontario Centre in Hamilton. The first 5,000 fans in attendance will get a Dan Dawson bobblehead courtesy of Backley Construction. Punch your ticket to Kids Night on Saturday, March 9th at 5 p.m. in Rock City at torontorock.com. Lock the gates! All right, let's do this. How are you, what the fuckers what the fuck buddies what the fucking ears what the fuckadelics what's happening i'm mark maron this is my podcast uh welcome to it it's called wtf have you been here before welcome back how's the new year going what day is it day is it day four of the new year two days in and uh

the guy who is uh you know in charge of uh planet maintenance just tweets out that he's got a bigger nuclear dick than the korean guy two days in what a fucking colossal global embarrassment we're living through make america great again how about make america irrelevant and sadly dumb again oh my god happy new year i hope you're i hope you're doing okay four days in uh today on the show tanahasi coats uh i will talk to tanahasi coats i loved his old book i like his new book i like his writing uh i've never met him before and uh it was very exciting to talk to him him i i do want to tell you that it was before the uh it was before the uh uh the big uh the big uh deletion of his twitter account god bless him what a hero anyone who deletes their twitter account is a hero so i didn't talk to him about that it It was before the, whatever the, before Cornell West,

uh, attacked the young buck, uh, for intellectual differences that, that seemed a little bit, uh, uh, misguided.

Uh, but, uh, I, I had, anything that went on from what I can tell, it's just the, the courage to get off fucking Twitter,

to, to pull your name off of the wall of that hellscape. God bless him, if you believe in that kind of stuff, or good on you. Is that good on him? That's what I say. Also, you can hear in this interview that the roots of it,

the movement towards the move that he made off of Twitter and out of the sort of public spotlight, the 24-7 public representation required of people who have public relevance, you can hear the seeds of it in our conversation. So that's coming up. And also, I finished watching Darren Aronofsky's Mother. I never got so much shit on this show.

Really, I think it was unprecedented, which is a word that should be one of the words of the year. Doubling down, unprecedented, and getting ahead of it. Those statements have been used more this year than I've ever heard last year unprecedented can we just switch that with that word when it comes to this administration unprecedented just say it was unprecedented or just say it was fucked up that this happened in the modern lexicon unprecedented means fucked up. That was fucked up.

You mean unprecedented? Yeah. Yeah, fucked up. So, oh, but I got a lot of pushback because when I set up the Darren Aronofsky interview, I promised him that I would finish the movie by the time I posted the interview, and I didn't because I didn't have fucking time. But I finished it. I watched the whole goddamn thing from the beginning again straight through and i don't know what happened to me i do not know what happened to me by exposing myself to that film

something happened something came at me something fuck with my head but i'm not sure exactly what it was and i don't know that it would have been necessarily relevant to the conversation without spoilers. Maybe I would ask him about some nuanced things, some little things in it, and watching it straight through, all the way through without stopping or pausing it, on a relatively big screen,

having watched part of it, and then rewatch that part again, and knowing that it's an allegory, though I'm not great with allegories it knowing that it's an allegory though i'm not great with allegories it was fairly complicated allegory and all i can say is it does seem to be i don't want to simplify it but yeah relationships can suck sometimes and it's uh 90 of the time it's the dude's fault. I don't know if that number's right.

And I'm sure that's not the allegory that Mr. Aronofsky was looking for. Like, yeah, yeah, relationships can be difficult. Is that what mother's about? Did I miss something? Is it really just about don't date an artist? Is that the allegory?

Is that what mother is about because if you simplify it it's sort of like hey this is there you know make sure you notice the red flags you know when your floors are bleeding and uh he's not paying attention to you and he's let an entire he's let a thousand strangers into the house uh you know don't don't let it go too far be careful when they're having public executions in your living room that uh maybe it's not good to uh to date a poet there you go see now even that could be seen as a spoiler but i don't know how many of you are going to see it but that shouldn't be a spoiler there's no way to spoil the movie mother because it's so fucking out there and i didn't think it was a bad movie a lot of people were

mad they were viscerally mad at the at the film mother and i i wasn't i thought it was a very ambitious a very big film a very you know visually uh stunning and exciting movie to watch all the way through. And, you know, if you have any sort of experience with experimental theater or experimental film, it shouldn't have been that jarring for you in the sense of like, hey, what's going on here? It's like, well, just shut up. You know, sometimes you got to let art flow over you, william hertz character said in the big show i'm paraphrasing you just have to you know let it happen as i said it was very complicated and and so many little elements seemed to be very deliberate there was nothing in that film that wasn't deliberate all the way down to you know anything that happened there was a it didn't seem like that there was

any room for spontaneity even though there seemed to be a tremendous amount of room for chaos, but it just seemed that everything was loaded up. So on that level, I think you could get aggravated in that. What could that mean? How do I decode this? So you got to watch that thing, but I'm going to have to maybe talk to Darren privately to figure out just exactly, you know, why the floor had a bloody hole in it so many times and we you know what was up with that was it ghosts were there ghosts was it something that's

always happened in in yeah in setting up a home is there like there's so many provocative things that you know i don't know i have to assume that he knew what they meant in order to put them in there so intentionally. But I will not dismiss it. And I take issue, I think, with people that just outwardly dismissed the film Mother. It's a stunning film. It's a bold film. It's a brain fucker. And I think if you're looking to make sense,

if you're looking for it to make sense, you're going in with the wrong expectation. So there, I watched it. If Darren Aronofsky is not mad at me for not having watched it when I set him up on this show, then I will talk to him about it and I'll get back to you.

I'll get back to you about what we talked about. So this morning, I'd like to say that I don't know what to tell you, man. East Coast, our state, I think, is still on fire. And it seems like some of you guys, you might get frozen. And that's not even a joke. I don't even mean to tinge out with the tone of silliness.

It's fucking going to be crazy the next few days on the east coast and uh be careful do not get frostbite on your face just because you went out to get the mail holy shit holy shit yeah let's just deregulate everything and let the plundering begin because clearly there's no planetary problems some guy's to freeze on his way to his car. Some guy's going to be scraping his windshield and just they're going to find him frozen, scraping his windshield.

But no, this is normal. This is normal. This is part of a cycle. Hannity says it's a cycle. Happens every once in a while. It was once as cold before one time. Hannity says it's a cycle happens every every once in a while it was cold once it's cold before one time and he says it's all right hannity says that's my new hook fuck it all right so i have ton ossey coats here uh a conversation i had with him and as i said earlier on, this conversation was had before he took the beautifully courageous move of ejecting from the Twitter hellscape.

So this is me talking to Ta-Nehisi Coates. His new book is called We Were Eight Years in Power, An American Tragedy. It's a collection of essays written over the course of the obama presidency and the first year of the trump administration you know i'm enjoying reading the new book i've not gotten all the way through it but i loved uh between the world and me it just it just opened my mind up to to an empathy that i couldn't have understood because uh there was no way for me to know, you know, personally. And I talked to him about that, but I thought that was a beautifully poetic book.

So this is me and Ta-Nehisi Coates here in the... snowballs on Uber Eats. But meatballs and mozzarella balls, yes, we can deliver that. Uber Eats. Get almost almost anything. Order now. Product availability may vary by region. See app for details. Death is in our air. This year's most anticipated series, FX's Shogun, only on Disney+. We live and we die. We control nothing beyond that.

An epic saga based on the global best-selling novel by James Clavel. to show your true heart just to risk your life when i die here you'll never leave japan alive fx's shogun a new original series streaming february 27th exclusively on disney plus 18 plus subscription required t's and c's apply garage garage yeah i i uh that's how i started interviewing people out of pure desperation and need to uh to do something with my life huh yeah why are you looking into it no no i i um one of the um

unfortunate things about uh the kind of career transition I've had. From? From journalist to whatever the fuck this is right now. What is it? I don't know. You don't know? But I used to ask all the questions. People didn't ask me questions.

I used to ask all the questions. Right. And I liked that a lot. Yeah, it's a better position to be in. It is a much better position to be in. Yeah, because then you don't have to repeat yourself. Nope. You don't have to feel like there's a lot in the balance.

You're always learning things. Right. But the one thing about talking to people about yourself is occasionally you come upon something like, I'd forgotten about that. That is true. No, that does happen. But the person has about talking to people about yourself is occasionally you come upon something like, oh, I'd forgotten about that. That is true. No, that does happen. But the person has to be good, you know, most of the time, yeah. That's right.

Yeah, but like you think out loud, but like I can tell from reading your work, you know, you're a very poetic and thoughtful writer that you work out a lot of this stuff on the page. I do. Right. You know, I can see it. Yeah. But when you talk, for for me i'm the opposite like if i talk you get me talking then i'll have moments where i'm like god that's that's pretty good yeah i remember occasionally that happens occasionally we think it through in conversation

yeah yeah yeah yeah but mostly no for me it's the page you're right well that's the relationship right yeah that doesn't happen in comedy does it that- Like you hit upon something on stage. Oh, all the time. That's why, well, that's how I do it. You know, that's the only way I can do it. It's in, what I've grown to realize about it, because some dudes write jokes, some dudes write bits. Right.

But I almost need to, I go up there with an idea that I know is funny, but I don't know how it becomes funnier. So if I go up with the idea that's funny enough, then maybe in that moment where i'm like shit you know i gotta make it like that moment where you're like where can i take it one step funnier has to be delivered to me up there almost like i corner myself got it to get out of that for that moment and you don't know what it's going to be but that's how you know you get the brain will take it i so you're not writing it down why i do it through memory you know i i do it through repetition yeah so like you know it's sort of like i i don't know why i do it that way but i write my i wrote my books like that and i'm

i'm not really a writer but it starts with and i worked with christopher jackson yeah of course that's my man it's a great guy yeah he he like he if if I hadn't had him for the last book, and I don't like to write books. I didn't want to write the last book. But Attempting Normal is that I, you know, they wanted 60,000 words. I had a bunch of transcripts of things I'd said. I'd put some essays together.

It was a hodgepodge of shit. And I'm like, here's 90. But, you know, I think he does that though he's pulling something together from Prince I believe oh really for really it's like you know Prince died like Prince was gonna write a book I heard that I heard he's dead right but he left all of this stuff oh really yeah they still want to do the book so I think that it's it's rare to find an editor that does that kind of work,

that does real editing, that you build a relationship with them. It's hard to get that across to people because, and I have begun to suspect, like I remember I used to listen to people do, like say at the Academy Awards, right? Right. And you wait up to see Best Picture. Yeah.

And whoever wins, and then there are a bunch of people on stage and you have no to see best picture yeah and whoever wins and then a bunch of people on stage and you have no idea who they are right and they thank all these people in the business who say i could not have done it without this person yeah and you're like fuck are you talking about you're the thing yeah but they're not the thing like now i can see and so it's and it's tough to convey uh like when you're working with somebody who's not in the spotlight like how much they did right you know what i mean yeah it's it's an interesting uh it's an interesting moment where you know in your heart that someone deserves 25 percent right 40 percent right right the credit right that's so true and and that's so true and a lot of times they'll let you off

the hook they're like that's my job. I don't need this. See, Chris doesn't want credit. Right. He doesn't want to see. And that's one of the things he's going through right now. Like, I think what's happening is people are beginning to figure it out. Because it's not just me.

It's like all these other people, right? Yeah. And it's like, huh, maybe we should. And so now people are looking to him. Uh-huh. And that bothers him. It bothers him a little bit. The people actually can see now.

Like there's some people who like, like they like the shot. Like I would be like, if I were him, don't talk about me. I don't want to. Right. You know what I mean?

I don't want, because there are things that come with that, right? Yeah. You know, it's not just credit. That's not the only thing that comes with it. And then like it could backfire

then all of a sudden people start dismissing the genius that. That's true. That's true. It ain't really that guy. Right, right, right. It's that guy

who didn't want any credit. Man, you know, I would take that right now. I would take that. He would not take that. I would take that right now. You need a rest? Yeah, I would take it in a minute. I'd say, yeah, it was all him.

Well, I mean, but that relationship is, well, how does it work with you guys? I mean, because you put together, did you put together all, is all the books with him? Mm-hmm. All three of them are with him. Oh, really? And I mean, he is, in every case he was there from inception. It has never been a case where I was like, here's a book. So you had like, you had the deal in place and then you sat down to talk with him about

how you were going to put together. Before we had the deal in place, in fact. Oh yeah. So the first thing, I started with Chris in 2000 and 2000 and i had two three something like that and from where how did he know you from the atlantic well no it was way way before that it's crazy it's been a long time man he um i got an agent yeah in in new york and the agent said to me there's a guy, Chris Jackson, and this was probably 2001. So he wasn't even at the- Random house. No.

No. Nope. I don't know. I guess he would have been crowned. Oh, really? And this is like, I don't know, 16, 17 years ago. Are you guys about the same age or is he older? Yeah, slightly older.

Yeah, yeah. Not much, but a few years older. Right. So he was still a relatively young editor at that time. And she said, you should meet this guy. And you should also write a book proposal. So I wrote a book proposal for a dumb idea. What was that?

I'm embarrassed to say. Come on, do it. It's the early days. So I grew up. And I was enthralled with these guys like Peter Goralnik. You ever read him? Sure, the music writer? Yeah, me, you, I, P. And he did this book, Sweet Soul Music.

And I love those histories of, you know, he's one of my histories of music. He did Elvis. He did Elvis, yeah. Did he do the Robert Johnson book, Sweet Soul Music. And I love those histories of, you know, he's one of my histories of music. He did Elvis. He did Elvis, yeah. Did he do the Robert Johnson book too? He might have. He might have done Robert Johnson too. A smaller book.

The Elvis book's like a massive book. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And it might be two volumes. It might be two volumes, I think. He has a lot of Elvis. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I think it's two volumes. So he wrote a book about...

He wrote a soul music book. It's incredible. It's a book, Sweet Soul Music, that I really loved. that i really loved and you know other people who've done books like that this dude robert palmer this book deep blues that i love um and i wanted to do something like that that was like a huge influence on me at the time i was writing a lot about music yeah so i wanted to do something like that for hip-hop and i you know wrote a proposal for it which wasn't very good and i was not capable of the right of doing it at the time it's a lot to manage a history there's a lot and chris

knew it so he declined it alone with everybody else but gloria was like but you still should meet this guy and this one i was like struggling i had no how old were you uh i would have been 26 27 something like that so this is uh you you were't have, you weren't, what were you doing? I was freelance writing and I made $5,000 in a year. That was a great year. So you were really, you didn't know what you're going to do? No, no, no, no. I mean, all I had was writing.

That was all I knew how to do. I dropped out of college. I had a one-year-old son and I had a wife who basically was my you know my girlfriend at the time but um she was working and making most of the money and i i had no ability to contribute anything really in terms of finances so you didn't feel great i felt horrible i felt horrible man how are you gonna turn this around i you know i want to i often want to like write about like what happens when people come to new york to strike it big or to see their dreams. And that first year when New York just runs over you and you got to get it figured out.

And that is an ugly period. Yeah. If anyone goes anywhere, whatever that is, because it's here too, LA too, right? Not many people are going to St. Louis. Baltimore. Yeah, right. I'm going gonna make it big in st louis but but yeah because you don't know what you're looking for you don't know how it works right if you're and if you're going in blind really with one guy's phone number right you don't know what that means and you're hanging everything on that phone number right right right right and that was how it was right that was how it was that was how i came in so we um so i you know she said you know after the proposal got

declined you know and i was like geez i don't know what i'm gonna do and she was like you know you should you should sit and talk with him though yeah y'all should meet i mean i know he said no she should actually sit and talk with him um so we did we had lunch and i started talking about my dad and he said well you know there might be a book there and i eventually years later became my first book beautiful struggle right and you know we put a lot of work into that um so that relationship became like a friendship and editorial relationship because that was like what four years putting that book together yeah basically and from. And from idea to proposal. And writing a proposal was the hardest thing in the world.

It's the worst. My God. Oh, it was terrible. It was terrible. What did you have to do? Pitch the book, then write a chapter or two? It was writing the chapter that was hard. And that was such a crucial point in my life because I could hear the writer I wanted to become.

And I knew what it sounded like, and I could not do it. What did it sound like? It could not do it what did it sound like it sounded a lot like i am now honestly it sounded a lot like between the world and me it didn't even sound like beautiful struggle sounded a lot like between the world so it's sort of a an incisive mixture of of reporting and poetry and i knew that and i knew that and i knew that i had you know been i had been a reporter early on while i was in college. I had been a poet early on. I was thinking about getting my MFA in poetry. I loved history.

All of that was in there. Yeah. I knew that I wanted to be able to pull from all sorts of, from pop culture to wherever. Yeah. I wanted to be able to pull on whatever I thought was interesting. And it just wasn't meshing. And I was trying to write it.

And so I, and this is the thing I always tell young writers that I know it may not be where you want it to be, but you have to do the thing anyway. You have to put it on the page. You have to go through that frustration. Sure. And even if it's not quite measuring up, like you got to turn it in,

you gotta, you gotta send it. You must finish it. Yeah. You got, you gotta finish. You gotta do the best you can. And then, and when I turned it was the best I could i didn't like it at all your first book first book

well what was it that first chapter yeah oh the first proposal for the proposal but usually when when you're in that mode and you're you got that opportunity and you want to write a certain way but you're not writing a certain way did you find yourself writing like somebody else could you identify what was happening on the page that you had to change you just didn't feel it i just didn't i just didn't feel it yeah i just didn't feel it and but you know what i did so but i got the contract somehow anyway you know he said okay yeah i think this works and i got the contract and when i went to write the book um i reread the first chapter el doctor rose ragtime really yeah and i was like i think it's kind of like this that was the book yeah that was the model yeah and then ragtime begins with him

just talking about where his family the character's family lived you know in new jersey and i tried to do that about west baltimore like i said okay I'm just gonna write here's where I live right and that was from the point of view of the piano player who was that no it's it's not clear

who's talking right it's not clear who the narrator is but it starts with the family little brother right

you know younger brother da da da you know mother father it just starts with different so I said okay

I'm just gonna start with you know I grew up and when I was nine years old I lived in this house West Baltimore da da da and I'm just going to start with, you know, I grew up and when I was nine years old, I lived in this house, West Baltimore, and I'm just going to do that. And I was like, oh, that feels easy. But of course, as it happens, whenever something, that's not the actual beginning, though. So I did that and that got me writing.

Yeah. But what happened was I wrote my way into the beginning and then ended up lopping all of that off. Off, totally. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But you need that. Sure. You know, you kind of, you got to get yourself into the environment, get yourself into the place again.

Right. And then all of a sudden, as you move through the words, you're like, ah, there's the beginning. Yeah, yeah. And that's what happened. And that happens so much. Yeah. But. The discovery.

But you don't know it when you're young. And so you think you're wasting your time, you know, but you're not. And also, I think when you're young, some part of you thinks of it as a business that's right right and you know like you know there's money i'm gonna you know i gotta make a book that sells books and right you know you don't it's a i think there's two kinds of people they go into it like that or they go into it like well i'm an artist and i'm never gonna you know what i mean like you're not gonna get me or they but that's a different world really i mean my buddy's a novelist. And that's a whole different racket, in a way, than reporting or memoir or essays.

I was prepared for this book to fail, which it did. But I really, really wanted to succeed. Most books do, man. It's a tough racket. It is what it is. You know? It is what it is. I was prepared for this to do nothing the first book the first book yeah yeah so i wasn't hugely disappointed right when it didn't well that's good because like if you don't

feel like you were where you needed to be fuck it if that's the other thing you know like it's like all right it's out there yeah i i you know i'm not ashamed of it yeah no no i could do better i could do better. I could do better. Right? And I got the practice in. I've been through the thing. I think what it did, though, was it gave me legitimacy.

You write a book and suddenly you're now something. Oh, sure. Right. You know what I mean? Yeah. You got a hardback and then you got a paperback. There you go. And then they offer you the thousand hardbacks they can't sell before they throw them in And that's what happened.

That's exactly what happened. You want a thousand hardbacks? Yeah. Why right exactly and that's what happened that's exactly what happened you got any you got you want a thousand hardbacks why don't you stick those in your garage a buck a piece you want them that's exactly what happened did you take them i did take them i did take them yeah i'm sure enough you got i was proud of that book man even though it did nothing like i was like wow you know and i was proud of myself actually having written a book like i was like i could actually do this. But that book must have put your sense of self in perspective. I mean, that was the type of book that it was. It made me, I think before then, before that book, I was dogged by this persistent feeling that I was destined for failure.

And I just, I couldn't do anything. Like, I had no ability to match skills see i grew up in this household and really in this neighborhood where it was felt that there was no model really for somebody screwing up in school dropping out of college and then becoming something yeah unless you're like a basketball player or like a entertainer, rapper or something like that. There's no model for... So the idea of actually getting to college and then putting the time in and then bailing. No. It's like this didn't happen.

No. It doesn't happen. No, there was no model for that. You know what I mean? You were the precedent. I was. I was. I was.

And it scared the hell out of my parents and it scared the hell out of me. Because they didn't know why you didn't finish school? No, they thought. And not only did they not know, but they knew why I didn't finish school because they had been struggling with me all those years before. But I think like it just, you know, when you're black and from Baltimore in that period of time. 80s?

Yeah, 80s and early 90s. And people just get lost. And horrible things happen to people who don't do good at school. Yeah. Awful, awful things. And so. Because the streets and the. That's it.

It just takes you in. And it's just lack of opportunity. You know, it's just what else you're going to end up doing. Yeah. You know, you're going to find a hustle. Right, right, right. Yeah. And so.

So they were worried about you. They were worried. They were worried. Now, by that point, by the time the book came out that was not gonna happen right but i mean but but like by the by the time you get through four years of college how many did you do man i think i was in and out of college for like six years so like i mean the idea that you were going to come back to the neighborhood and start selling crack was not no i wasn't gonna do that that wasn't gonna happen i wasn't gonna that. But then now you enter into just the sort of disasters that happen to adults, period.

Right. Maybe you become an alcoholic. Maybe you become a drug addict. Or a shitty job. You know, yes. Yes, yes, yes, yes. I mean, when I came to New York, I was delivering food. Yeah, but the alcohol and drug addict,

that would have revealed itself before. I guess it would have. Yeah, you would have. I guess it would have. You weren't destined for that. You just thought you were destined for failure, sadness. Yeah, a lot of sadness. The guy who just is delivering food in his heart.

He knows he's a genius. That's the worst character. But the thing is, I didn't know I was a genius. I didn't have that. I didn't even have that. But you know what was cool about that the cool thing was i developed a self-esteem out of a couple of really really hard things i knew i was a good father and i knew i was a good partner and i knew i was very very good those are important things yeah yeah to those two people in

my life but i didn't understand that, like how, see there's, like when we think about lying to people or not being good to people, we think about the harm we do to them, but we don't think about the harm we do to ourselves. Like we're telling ourselves who we are. Yeah. You know, and if you lie to people repeatedly,

you can often find it hard to actually trust yourself. Right, oh, oh, oh like am i trust yourself in the sense that's who i am i'm a liar right i'm a liar that's what i do so if i you know this becomes crucial when it becomes time to make promises to yourself right and also like when you live in that you've insulated yourself into a bunch of relationships that aren't founded in reality that's right that's right so you're sort of floating that's exactly it that's exactly so i wasn't floating good i wasn't i wasn't grounded yeah i wasn't i didn't have much you know in terms of money finances that but i was i was you know i had you know a pretty clear relationship you know uh with my wife i had a pretty clear relationship

with my son and those are rewarding things and and and substantial and nurturing and good good for the heart and mind they are they are they are yeah and it became crucial much much later when you know i actually did have you know some amount of success yeah uh because i knew who i was right you know i was very very clear on who i was yeah yeah um yeah so that that that stops you from getting away from yourself it's's true. It's true. It's true. I mean, I've said this a couple times in interviews, but after, really, out between the world and me, I had a new appreciation for athletes

and entertainers. Yeah. Because for so many of them, it happens young, and I got.0001% of what those guys get. Yeah. And it was a struggle for me. And had I not had that foundation, and had I been, say, 20, 21, I have no idea who I would have been. Yeah.

I have no idea who I would have been. No, sometimes it's good to take the hits and then, you know, get it when you can handle it. Yeah. You know what I mean? Like I got it when I was in my mid-40s. How would you have handled it at 21? It wouldn't have been good because I was fundamentally insecure.

So I don't really know, you know, what would have happened or whether I was really ready for anything. You know, like I've seen it happen to people. You know, a lot of people get it too early. They go up and then they go down and then they disappear. Or they fight it out and they come back later. Like, I mean, I remember when, like, Bill Burr, Kevin Hart. Like, they got it and then it didn't happen. And then they had to go back.

And then they had to come back again. Right. And work. I don't know if I had the come back again thing. Yeah. You know what I mean? Yeah, I know exactly what you mean. But it sort of was a very slow build and

it happened in a very unorthodox way yeah but when did you when did the writing start you really really when did you start getting consumed with that how old were you i always i mean for as long as i can remember so when you were a little kid yeah yeah yeah like uh i probably learned to read when i was like four is that normal or is that good uh i've decided that it doesn't much matter because uh my son learned to read much later he actually learned to read when he was seven so you're not gonna take any points for no no no and he reads much quicker than i do yeah you know he learned later yeah you know he's a much better reader um so i don't think it means it only means something in the sense that in terms of like memory, like my memory of myself is always of someone reading.

Well, maybe there was an urgency to it. Yeah, maybe so. I mean, I grew up in this household where that was really important. Yeah. You know, where reading and literacy was like a big, big deal. Oh, because your old man was a he had a press. Yeah, he did. He did.

He did. And he was, you know at that point he's a research librarian and he had been reading for as long as he could remember uh-huh you know and so and my mom was a teacher and so obviously it was important what grade did she teach she taught special ed and so a lot of times there would be like combinations of you know different levels of students uh-huh you know um but she was they both were just really really huge in terms of you know like gotta gotta read gotta read and the good thing about my my household was they weren't dismissive of reading weird things like so it wasn't like oh comic books are not real books yeah like i didn't grow up with

that yeah you know or you're reading i read a lot of fantasy when i was a kid you know that's not real you need to go read this oh yeah you're like a fantasy kid i was yeah i was comic books yeah all of that stuff man i love that stuff as a kid like full-on like you're like a full-on nerd guy i was i was except i wasn't because i didn't know what that was well no one knew what it was i didn't know what that was like that didn't have in retrospect that's what i was but there was no group of people like that well yeah you know what i mean there was no and i liked everything else everybody else like I liked basketball. I liked, like I didn't like hate sports or anything.

So I didn't really have a, it was only later when people put a name on it. Well, no, right. But back in the day you had to find those three guys. Yes. Or the two guys. Yes, yes, yes. And it was like, there used to be a small huddle. Yeah.

It was before it was like a way of being that was like sellable and acceptable. Well, so for me, it was even worse because there was no one at my school. Well, you know, it's different though. Because like comic, there were a lot of kids that liked comic books. A lot. Sure, sure. There were a lot of young boys that liked comic books. So that was not so isolating.

In terms of fantasy, it was like my older brother and that was it. But okay, it was like, this is a weird thing that we're into. Your older brother was into it? Yeah, yeah, yeah. My older brother Malik. How many brothers and sisters do you have? I have six total. Six total.

I got four brothers, two sisters. And you have good relationships with everybody? Yeah, and considerably better than it probably should be on paper. Why is that? Well, it's four different mothers, man. I mean, so you would think that would just be the seeds of all sorts of bad shit. But how did you grow up? I grew up, so I grew up.

Were they everyone around? Yeah, I mean, basically, yeah. I grew up with my mom and my dad. Yeah. And they had different mothers, but they would come live there at different points. The other kids. Yeah, basically, yeah. I grew up with my mom and my dad. Yeah. And they had different mothers, but they would come live there at different points. The other kids. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Everyone's coming through.

That's exactly. And the way it worked is if you fucked up at your mom's house, you had to come live with my dad. I'm sending you to your dad's. So he accepted the responsibility. Oh, that was like who he was. Yeah. That was like his essence. That was his identity.

Oh, yeah? Yeah. I was talking Yeah. That was like his essence. That was his identity. Oh, yeah? Yeah, you know, I was talking to him one time. You know, so he comes out. You know, he was in the Panther Party. And, you know, he had all these, you know, sort of radical associates. And so folks, you know, coming out of the 60s would do things like, you know, disappear from the country and be gone for like 20 years. He was talking about this one guy. He had gone to Zimbabwe or wherever.

Yeah, right. And the guy had a kid here. Yeah. That he didn't see for like 18 years and so i i sat today you know who had had his own troubles though i said could that ever have been you he said no i had to see my kids yeah i had to see my kids uh-huh i just don't have that whatever that is that allows you to be apart i don't have that so no it was his kids were a huge part of his identity oh so so everybody was always around or he was going out to see them or

were they everyone in the neighborhood? I think if it were up to him and he had had the space, he would have had them all at the house. Yeah. With the women, with the mothers. Probably so. Probably so. A big commune. Yeah, but it was never a thing where it was like, oh, shit, I got to deal with my son. Right. I was not him not him well that's maybe where you picked it up probably so right yeah probably so i mean i what i got from him was i mean it's not even so much that it was a privilege it was like a defining part of who you are yeah you know what if what am i if not father to these kids right you know what i mean well not everybody

thinks that way no and it's sort of astounding uh when i you know uh when i when i sort of think about it like even like i don't have any kids because i i knew i was too selfish and too panicky and you know and i never i i don't know what it changed you though i know i i i hear that you know so i could tell you this like before my son was born like i think he actually saved me in many ways. I think I was very capable of doing a lot of horrible things to myself. Putting myself in a situation that I should not have been in. To what end? Like what are you talking about?

Go out and do whatever the fuck I want. Right. You know what I mean? But you weren't self-destructive, really, were you? I wouldn't have thought about it that way but i think i was open to all sorts of things as a young person but i but samari was born when i was 24 right and so always in the back of my head was if something happens to you it will hurt these people over here yeah but absent that i mean who knows what i would have

done right i almost because at that point I didn't have regard for myself. Right. Like, I didn't have, I had much more regard for my son and my wife than I had for myself. But you didn't hate yourself. You were just disappointed or something. No, it's just like, if I, you know, okay, whatever. I mean, it was just like, they felt innocent to me. Yeah.

In a way that I didn't feel innocent to myself. Right, right. You know what I mean? Yeah. Like, they, you know, okay, well, whatever happens to you, that's cool, but you can't hurt them. Right. I mean, they didn't ask for this. Yeah. They didn't ask for you to, you know, okay, well, whatever happens to you, that's cool, but you can't hurt them. Right. I mean, they didn't ask for this.

Yeah. They didn't ask for you to, you know, go out and do whatever and end up in some sort of situation. So, was it that you were, like, hard on yourself for not living up to something? Yeah, that was a huge part of it. And I just didn't have much, I don't know. Yeah. I didn't have much regard. Yeah.

For myself. I didn't think about, for for instance something bad happening to me in relation to me it's only recently that i've started thinking like that like yeah yeah what do you mean like i think about like what if something happened all the work that i want to like all the ideas i have in my head i don't get to you know do them oh that'd be horrible right but i have any of that as a young person maybe you had less ideas well i had the ideas but i didn't think i was gonna get to do them anyway so who cares you know so i wonder what that is though you know i mean like your your dad seems like he had his you know he was doing shit yeah he was and your mom my mom was how did your mom handle all those kids of different peoples uh well my mom um

and it'd be interesting to think about why. My mom has a tremendous giving spirit. Yeah. And she just took it on. Folks came into the house and she just took it on. She took a deep, deep commitment to children. Yeah. In general. And that I think is reflected in, you know, why she became a special ed teacher.

Sure. You know, um, my mom also has this thing and I don't know why again, but for people who seem to be dismissed. Yeah. And my mom started a scholarship in her mother's name for C students at the school she's at now. Huh. Like, you got to be a C student. To get the scholarship. Give the C students, give them a little something.

Yeah, because people overlook C students. Because she's like, listen, you know, just because you got a C, that don't mean, you know, you're not, you know, filled with, you know, potential, you know, X, Y, and Z. You know, so the scholarship is for, so you got this thing for people who she feels like don't look good on paper or are dismissed or, you know what I mean, may not be X, Y, and Z or may not look like X, Y, and Z. You know, and she, you know, i don't know what that is i guess it probably reflects something in her own biography but it's not a bad thing no it's not a bad thing it's interesting to think shouldn't talk about like a pathology no no no she's just nice to everybody the hell is wrong all these ace dudes around it's how these c students that's pretty amazing yeah but uh so the oh yeah so what were your comic books when you were a kid which one man i loved spider-man x-men yeah oh jesus christ it's i like i read comic books for

a little while like when i was much older and you know i i think you know i liked them for a couple of years but i didn't do it when i was a kid i did it later like i i liked the swamp thing and hellblazer sandman uh was where i came into him it was like hell it when I was a kid. I did it later. I liked the Swamp Thing and Hellblazer, Sandman. Yeah. It was where I came into them. Yeah. It was like Hellblazer. Those are mature comic books.

I know. Those are not fun. Yeah, I didn't read them as entertainment when I was a kid, but I have a brain. Either you can lock in or you can't, the comic books. I don't know. It's a weird mind that can do it. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Did you like, because when I read them, I tend to just, I move fast, and there's so much art there, but I'm still moving fast. Right. I don't notice the art as much as I should. I don't know why that is. But I read the narrative, and it's all there.

It's all in front of me, and I know it's going in. But maybe you are noticing it. You are, yeah. But there's some of them, especially now, you want to stop and like, holy shit, man. That's nice. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Because you're writing them now, right? I am.

I am. So on some level, that must be the greatest thing in the world uh my inner 12 year old is like blown away just completely fucking blown away you know yeah no i i enjoy it i mean it's like black panther yeah yeah yeah it's like playing with toys what now did you did they did you kind of uh were you part of reinventing that character or pulling the character off the no i think he was pretty well reinvented by the time i got to him had he been running for decades he had he had you know i've been running since the 60s and this guy christopher priest uh who's a great comic book writer had really made him like cool and yeah hip and you know so that

by the time i got i got to him he was pretty well yeah you know formed if anything i kind of felt like i wanted to go in the other way did you read him when you were a kid uh no because he didn't have an ongoing when i was a kid you know he just appeared in other people's stuff so i saw that way you know occasionally but um no i i wanted to go in the other way like i felt like he had become basically shaft yeah you know what i mean like he was just you know black dude didn't take shit you know whip your ass and i was more interested in his vulnerabilities yeah the chinks and the you know in the armor and you know etc yeah you know that that sort of thing did you were you able to do that yeah yeah yeah yeah no i don't it it has been um i just love it it's a ball yeah and i love it when

the script is done and you can see it and it's all you know come together um how many have you done as of now so uh i just literally finished my 24th script but uh we probably are on number 16 i think or 17 i can't i can't remember in terms of what's out yeah in terms of what i what i turned in i just finished like my 24th so what compelled you to like to to reassess the you thought the character was too one-dimensional in a way a stereotype maybe so here's the thing um there is a thing in comic books and in pop culture at large where black audiences feel like they want to see a black character who is the badass kicking the shit out of people right you know i mean yeah you know because that comes against the backdrop of a lot of black characters being sort of passive and sidekicks and that and that

sort of thing you know it's the blaxploitation impulse right it's a strong desire to see that yeah yeah and i think like there's a you know like i think different um like you probably can see a lot of this across the board in terms of ethnic communities i know you know the jewish community kind of you know has gone through this from time to time where you know we don't want to be portrayed like these you know accountant dweebs or you know we want we got tough guys too yeah we got some jewish gangsters right exactly exactly that's exactly it though that's exactly it some jewish badasses right right right and i know asian american community it's gone through that you know where this idea of male being you know sort of wimp, you know, the exact same sort of thing.

So I think Black Panther was sort of, at least as, you know, he had been written in the last 20 years, was very much a reaction. Well, that. Well, actually that. You know, hey, here's the badass dude. I'm going to tell you, you know, what the fuck is up. But that's interesting and, you know, entertaining to read. Yeah.

That's interesting and entertaining to read. Yeah. But I actually think that reaction deprives characters of their humanity. Uh-huh. Like, okay, what if we accepted, yeah, all right, we got some badass, kick-ass people. Right. Yes, we can do that. Yeah.

And then we proceeded from there. In other words, not having to prove something to ourselves. Right. Not having to model anything. Not having to say, hey, we got Jewish gangsters. Yeah. Like, we just say, yeah, okay, all right. Yeah other words, not having to prove something to ourselves. Right. Not having to model anything. Not having to say, hey, we got Jewish gangsters. Yeah. Like, we just said, yeah, okay, all right. Yeah, yeah, yeah. That's true.

Now, what's interesting? Right. You know, and this became interesting. The badassness became the floor as opposed to the goal. Right. You know, and then I just felt like that opened me up to being able to ask all sorts of other questions. Yeah.

You know? Yeah. Like, how would this guy handle an emotional situation? Yeah, well, I mean, like... A personally challenging situation? Yeah, I mean, what I think about comic books is what you do when you start writing is you go and you read all the back issues

and you get insight. And I guess actors do the same thing, right? Like, you try to get insight. Like, you take a part in a movie, you try to get your particular insight into this character. And the insight I found was, okay, this guy was king at a you know it's mythical perfect african kingdom yeah but he was always going off to like fight with the avengers and do all the sorts of shit that didn't want to stay home there you go that's exactly it he had never dated a woman from his

home country uh-huh you know what i? And so it came upon me that- What's he avoiding? Right. What's he avoiding? Maybe he don't like being king, actually. You know what I mean? Right. Like maybe he actually does not enjoy.

And that became interesting to me. Like maybe he feels a responsibility to be king, but if he had his druthers, this was not what he would be doing. You know, he would be shooting across the universe doing X, Y, and Z. He wouldn't be here. You know, being a king is fucking boring. I mean, you got all these reports you got to sift through and you got to deal with your ministers. I mean, come on.

This guy's a superhero. A lot of responsibility. He's a superhero. He's a superhero. You know, he wants to say, sit here and look at your economic reports. Yeah, yeah. You don't want to do that. Does his kingdom know that he's a superhero?

They do, but those two things are always in conflict right they're always in conflict because he's not here there are coups that are always you know in the comic book like there are coups that happen because he's not there yeah you know um there's always trouble in the kingdom but is he not allowed to lose his use his superhero in this in his kingdom he is allowed to use his superhero in this in his kingdom but like if you're a king yeah your loyalty if you're a king and the only thing that allows you that if your source of your power is only i will beat the shit out of you yeah you actually are a weak king right like you have their sources of legitimacy sure that are beyond right you know what i mean you know just strength right you'll be just a strong man right and then you're just a strong man that's exactly yeah yeah it was actually a week a week form of

government so it isn't even so much that he couldn't use his superhero power it's that how does he inspire loyalty uh-huh if he's just an asshole or a bad or if he doesn't like being king like how do you inspire loyalty to the throne if he doesn't like being king right you know so these were the thoughts these were the thoughts yeah and that would be the struggle yeah that would be the struggle well you see anything in your own life that's like that see that's interesting yeah um so i started writing black panther writing Black Panther yup right about the time Between the World and Me

came out yeah and it was right about the time that I began to feel like people were putting a crown on me

yeah with those expectations yes yes yes that I was not interested in and I wouldn't say

the occupation of a writer is like a superhero. Yeah. But you get to travel quite a bit. You get to ask interesting questions. You get to meet all sorts of people. It's independent. You decide what's interesting to you.

People don't tell you what you should be doing. And increasingly, there was a public presence that was saying, you should be doing and increasingly there was a public presence that was saying you should be doing this you should be looking at this you should be able to answer this and it would be shit that i had no idea about and sometimes no interest in at all so like oh so you became like what is the world of those questions the world of the questions of race like you know that they wanted you to become an authority on dealing with... Yeah, that probably was the most troublesome aspect of it. But interesting enough, not even limited to that.

Yeah. Like, what else? Not even limited to that. Ta-Nehisi, you lived for... You know, you're very interested in France. Can you give us some perspective on the politics of that country? You know? And so, you would say, yes, you should be able to do that because you're interested in it.

You've lived there for a period of time. But in fact, no, I've lived in the United States for 40 years. I've been asking myself these questions about American politics since I was in middle school. So no, I can't give insight on France like that. I can't. I just can't. You know what I like that yeah i can't yeah i just i just can't you know what i mean um out of your wheelhouse way out of my it's just something i'm interested in yeah yeah yeah you know i mean it's just something right like almost

because i read the book and like i think that's when we i was we first started like we talked on twitter because after that book you went to france i don't know what the timeline is but i know that we were we were talking about doing this, but you were going to France. But when I read the book, for me, that book, because of the poetics of it and because of the emotion of it and the connectivity to yourself

and your experience and the thoughts and actions behind it, I experienced something. It opened my mind. Right? So, you know, but in the sense that like it was a personal story and when I was reading it, I was like, oh man, I never thought about that. But I have an empathy deficit sometimes because I'm a selfish person. So like it's not just about, like I talked about this the other day

in relation to women too. It's that When you're selfish or self-involved You know you seem that you don't have you seem to be one of these people that naturally maybe because your mom I think that It is very I think You can have a kind of declarative sympathy yeah but i actually think one of the great things that art and journalism do is they can put you there right so take this post weinstein moment we're in

right now yeah if you had said to me sexual harassment is a huge problem in the workplace i would have agreed with that yeah that's probably a woman yeah that's probably true and i'm not and i'm not like ah that's not a problem right i didn't know it was like this right i like i didn't like you when you read this no this is what actually happened these are the stories this dude held me down and did x y and z i was just trying to you know go to work and this dude was telling me i should be wearing tight dresses yeah like that then it's like oh yeah oh like sexual harassment is almost like a euphemism for what you're actually i didn't have that expected to to put up with right i didn't i can't say i had that that sort of you know no matter that sensitivity to it no right no no and how can you right how can you? Right. How can you?

Well, that's how I felt when I read your book about just the simple elements of the black experience. It's like going on an elevator. Right. Whatever. And of course it makes sense. And why wouldn't I have thought that? Why would I have? Why would you have?

Why would you have? Why would anyone? Right. Why would anyone? Unless you're in it and forced to think about it in a particular deep way, you can't. I mean, you can't. And as I said, the past month has really, really clarified that. Because when the book came out, I would get frustrated to some extent with the way masses of white people read the book.

Which is, if you're generalizing, how? Yeah, like, oh, you're going to interpret this experience for me. And then, you know, what I really realized, again, over the past month is, you know, somebody does, like, you do need interpreters. You do. That's a valuable role because there are people who will never live in the world that you're living in ever right and what would you have them like not know at all like is that what you want do you want them to be completely ignorant of that i mean what what like what what are you what are you asking for here so you you're accepting the role of as a of interpreter to some degree

what what is writing if you're not though i guess you i mean even for other black people you're interpreting no absolutely but i guess but i i guess the thing is is that you're already doing that but but because of the nature of the conversation about race, you're put in a position, right? What? Is it happening? Am I doing something? No, it's just great. So I'm thinking about it.

But I mean, you are following the natural logic of what I just said. You don't want that. You did the work. Now you do your part. That's what I want you to do. Go over there. Go over there. Leave me alone.

You got the book. You're fine get out of here work on it get out of here i mean imagine like you do your your your your stand-up right and you really like you like you you love your stand it's not like you're proud of it yeah yeah yeah yes yeah most of the time well i mean let's take let's take one i don't know particular you know tour you do a one particular act the last last special I did, the last special I did, I liked. It was the best thing I did. Okay.

Yeah. What if people repeatedly came to you and asked you to explain it and talk about it and, you know what I mean? Like, you had to constantly have to discuss it and open it up, tell people what it meant, what they should get from it sure i should watch it what the but that but that but but that's that's the that that's because you've been chosen as a

representative yeah see i don't want to do that yeah i know i mean the shit you do that the shit it should speak for itself right it's like you i you could answer all questions with, did you read the book? Right, right, right. I already, I said it. I did it. It's all in there. Right, right. Right. But for me, in terms of what I've chosen to write about,

whether I like it or not, that's probably not entirely fair. Yeah. That's probably not entirely fair. To have the disposition you have. No, because some of these folks are coming here for the first time in their lives.

Yeah. And it means something to them. In terms of understanding? Yeah. And I'm just trying to, you know, of course you have folks who are insincere who just you know sort of signaling to each other yeah but i think like a cynical i think it's like cynical to say that's you know most of what i think you have to you know if somebody comes to you and says this is a genuine thing i'm feeling and you have to accept it and say okay all right and here's the other piece of it this i knew but it's worth saying again most writers would kill for an audience yeah you know what i mean

most writing is completely fucking forgotten yeah so you got to be really careful about complaining of the fact that large numbers of people are reading what you do or seeing what you do like you gotta you gotta always ask yourself you say okay that's a problem but do you want the other problem yeah you know because life's a problem life is always a problem right you know and you need to be clear about the problems you want and the problems you don't want right but i i right and as a writer you're doing well and it's nice to have an audience but it is sort of like the thing that's kind of mind-blowing that I think that I don't want to accept and that I think most people, entitled people, don't want to accept

is that moment like you had with Stephen Colbert where it's like, what did you say? You're looking to me for hope? Yeah, why are you talking to me? Go talk to your pastor, man. I mean, sir, and I mean that. What are you talking to me for? I can't give you hope.

I mean, in that way, but see, in that way, I do, like, I see myself kind of as an artist, and I don't mean that in a pretentious sort of way. I see journalism or the kind of journalism I do in that sort of way, in the sense that, you know, folks who write in this long- long form way they're thinking about presentation and moving things around they're trying to affect emotion how much of that shit do i read that's hopeful to me right how much of the art that i love how much of what of anything does influence me what i describe as

inspiring hope yeah very little very little i mean i would describe it as illuminating sure you know enlightening right you know what i mean right um but hope is not a word that i would use for much of what i've consumed and so do you see a reason is that because i don't i don't i don't look for hope in much of anything i do look for relief occasionally right uh and i do look to have my mind blown yes but i look for that i look for that but truth is relieving to me yeah truth like truth is even if it's not everything's gonna be okay it's like okay at least i know now now i know well i'm happy to know well it's like that thing you said about like i did i think we i was talking to somebody my producer about uh uh when james baldwin saying that you should be aware that failure is a distinct possibility.

It is. It is. And you should be. And you got to keep that. Like you got to you got to really, really, you know, keep that, you know, eye in your mind. It's so funny that the sort of American narrative. That's right. You know, even the Hollywood narrative, the happy ending.

Right. And, like, I find myself, you know, even despite my own intelligence, realizing that, like, this is, you know, because you want relief, man. Right? You want relief. Something's got to give. Yeah. And then you realize, like, eh, maybe not. No, maybe not. And maybe this is life.

And then you have to, you know, I think your job as any sort of writer, artist, journalist, whatever, is then, you know, try to make something of what's there. And that's the kind of place I'm in. Yeah. But I don't, again, see myself as that different. You know, is it live at the Sunset Strip? Yeah. Richard probably talks about burning himself up and all that. Right.

I love that piece, man. It's the best. Oh, my God. Yeah. Does it make me hopeful? Yeah. Do I watch that and feel now everything's going to be okay? Or do I feel like there is something about humanity that's being revealed?

Uh-huh. That I'm seeing something I have not seen before. Uh-huh. He was good at that you know yeah and that's what i want to do yeah see that's what i want to do you know i want to show some aspect of humanity maybe has not you know been and that might be something really dark right but i think you do do that i mean i've only read a couple of the essays in the new book but after reading that the the last book that what you you know

what i think prior also balanced was you know an amazing sense of of community and and acceptance right in within that community and then also his own crazy shit yeah so like you know he was this kind of like disaster right moving through a world that somehow took care of him. Right. You know, and it was a black world. Right. For most of the time. Right. Right. Right. So, you know, you you got this amazing balance of darkness and and and at least consistency. Yeah. A sort of elevation of the human spirit. Right. Right. Which isn't hope. Right. It's that's humanity you're talking about. Right. Exactly. Exactly. And oftentimes I think. Right. It's that's humanity you're talking about. Right. Exactly. Exactly. And oftentimes I think,

um, like what I'm being asked to do is read a bedtime story to somebody or, you know, again, going back to this, cause it's the, it's the closest to make it. You're asked to probably being asked to make white people feel better.

Yes. And you know what? Again, I've become more sympathetic towards that impulse. Like again, in this last month, reading this stuff, I find myself like thinking, not even like, well, what have I done that's that bad? But I find myself wanting to distinguish myself. Like, not all men.

Literally not all men. I mean, I ain't done no shit like that. Like, I found myself, you know what I mean? And I had actually a conversation with, you know, a couple of male friends about this we're feeling the same way and you know realizing because of what had happened with me that the last thing you want to do is call up any woman you know and say please say i'm not like that please offer me absolution yeah which is what i get a lot of right you know uh you know i get a lot of people you know come to me white people are so fucked up white people are so sad things that like i don't even say

yeah you know what i mean because they want to right they read it and they feel like horrible about it these are white people saying that yeah yeah yeah yeah and they want to you know what i mean like distance like i don't want any part of this man can i get out of this please i don't want anything to do with this what do you say like nope you're no i just listen i just listen because the fact of the matter is you can't get out of it anymore that i can get out of you know what i'm in anymore i can get out of you know being a part of you know men and you know the shit that you end up done like you can't get out of it you're connected to it you know what i mean anytime there's a group with power uh-huh you know what i mean yeah you you usually do not have the ability to individually extract yourself,

you know, from, from all of that. Yeah. Well, that's what, when you came in, I think that's why I started telling you I wanted to do.

Yeah. Right. Like you wanted to get out. Right. You want to get out. I want to get out. Yeah. I mean out.

Right. Right. Like what? Become a fisherman or something? Yeah. Yeah. I know. I know that impulse,

man. Wait, what's your job out there in the off the grid land? I want to, and I always wanted to be a taxi driver. Yeah? Yeah.

You could probably do that. I don't think I could. My wife stopped me from doing it when I had no money. She wouldn't let me do it even then. Oh, yeah? Yeah. What, because it wasn't safe?

Yeah, that's exactly it. She was like, it's not safe. What is it about taxi driving that's compelling compelling so when i first came to new york like my the one job i had to consist of money i had was i was i deliver food and i liked it i didn't like i would pick up the food and then i would have to you know and it would be like for these like corporate clients i would pick it up from this deli and then deliver and you were a middle man yeah basically But my only responsibility was to get it there at a particular time.

Yeah. I didn't care how I did it. I didn't care what I did in between. Right. It was over my shoulder. You know what I mean? I would cut on sports radio and I would be in my own zone.

Uh-huh. And I just had to get the stuff there. Yeah. And it felt so free. Yeah. You know what I mean? Way enough. Yeah.

It just felt free. It's a simple task. Yeah. You know what I mean? Yeah like it just felt free it's a simple task yeah you know what i mean and it wasn't like fill out this form do this do that no no just can you just get this here yeah oh yeah i was talking to a guy yesterday another comic about when i started out when you start out and all you're doing is you know just thinking about that joke yeah you know you got that thing you know you got to set it you know 10 at night for 10 minutes and the rest of the day is like it's yours man yeah you gotta think about that joke yeah and walk around yeah but the truth of the matter is i probably prefer my life right now no your life is good so what are you doing

out here uh writing i wanted to um just be away oh really And you wanted to feel the Southern California thing? No. This summer, when I had to do the last essay in the book, this essay, The First White President, I was somewhere away

and like far, far away, far from New York, not here, but far, far away. And it was. You don't want to say where you were? I don't want to say where I was. My wife told me not to say where I was.

I'll tell you once the end of the show. But. You went there to write that? I went there on vacation, actually. And I was with, you know, some friends and they would go swim in the morning and they would go swim in the evening. And I would write through morning until afternoon. I would go swim with them you know in the afternoon evening and you must have been a wreck man it was the healthiest time oh yeah i was like this is supposed to be my life uh like this is what's supposed to be like i feel so natural yeah like i just feel natural yeah here uh-huh and i wanted to you

know i couldn't reproduce that exactly but i wanted to get as close as i could to that uh-huh you know um and i just i wanted to clear my head i wanted to clear everything so you're down yeah you're down on on the beach so how is it working is it well it's only been two days but yeah yeah so far yeah and you know the thing about it working is it well it's only been two days but yeah yeah so far yeah and you know the thing about out here is i mean it's a i don't want to insult anybody but um they can take it let's just say authors do not have the same level of profile here that they do and say new york just another guy right and that's fine with me yeah that's so fucking fine with me yeah you're a star in New York.

Well, I tell you, I wouldn't say all of that, but what I would say is there's a cafe where I wrote almost all of my books where I've been writing since 2004. In Brooklyn? In actually Uptown and Morningside Heights. I have been back there, but I should expect to get interrupted if I go there. Right. You can't. Yeah, you can't work. I should expect that. I should expect that that's what's going happen that comes with it yeah it does yeah that's not gonna happen here no no no good you're free here you're free amongst everybody no one gives a fuck man so how was france you were in france for a year i was now what is your relationship with james baldwin

i mean in terms of of legacy in terms of inspiration in terms of of being compared to him because you know i had raul peck in here and i watched that documentary and i again it was you know something i did not know about and the levels at which his brain operated on uh james baldwin god you must be learning so much at this period in your life yeah is that all right that's great is that a another way of calling is that another way of calling it? Is that a way of you saying like, where you been? Bullshit.

No, bullshit. It's heavy because like, I feel like maybe there was a point in your life where you're giving. I mean, and I guess you're still doing this because you're performing. But performing is so much out, out, out, out, out. But this is in. Like you must be taking in so much.

I do. And I listen to people and I've always taken things in, but it's always been fragmented and not very disciplined, right? It's like a job now. It's a craft. It's good. That is awesome.

But to sort of be introduced to him and then to talk to Raul about him and then to realize the depth of that intellect and that type of intellectual. And he was a public intellectual. He was. When there were public intellectuals that could do the the johnny carson show right right right or the dick cavett show right and that was and and have these competitors or uh william f buckley right uh that that i don't know what part of culture operated at those levels or took that in but but they were they were mainstream right and something went away right you know that whole you know urban intellectual 70s right so like i was blown away by his thoughts and and

disturbed and uh you know enlightened but as somebody who gets compared to him or or seems to be somewhat in the same type of cultural criticism you know what do you find your relationship to him or or seems to be somewhat in the same type of cultural criticism you know what do you find your relationship to him is well i mean i've been reading paul since i was in college um he is i mean my favorite american essayist beautiful that thing when we were talking about voice earlier yeah i mean i was, I was aiming for. Actually, at that point, I wasn't aiming for him. But that mix of like poetry and history and actually journalism, although this gets looked over. He does, you know, quite a bit. You know, there's reporting all through State of Fire next time.

In fact, the last scene is a pivotal scene is actually just a work of journalism. He's the God. Yeah. I mean um he's the god yeah i mean he's a god i mean he will have the longest sentences in the world but you'll be able to follow them yeah and it'll just be like a wave you know i mean just sort of undulating flowing yeah and it's beautiful and it'll leave you feeling like i said see i think about ball I think about his ability to make me feel. Yeah. You know, really, really make me feel to get to it. And, you know, when I was, specifically when I was working on Between the World and Me,

but even before that, but specifically for Between the World and Me, that was what I was aiming for. Yeah. You know, I wanted to do what he did. So, any sort of craft-based comparison, which I think is actually the correct comparison, I take as high praise. You know, I take as high praise. There's no point in me running, you know, from that.

It's true. I mean, I model myself after. I read it. And we all need people that we model ourselves after. And for me, you know, in terms of my writing, you know, he's the one. Yeah. You know, he's the one. Oh, yeah. Yeah, i could see it yeah and it's like you

know what's amazing about him as a public personality you know he could the way he could articulate thoughts and then move away from him that's right and then come back around exactly it holy shit exactly and hold the thread right like hold the thread like he's okay he's okay he he may be over here for a second, but he knows where he's going. Yeah. And if you ever try to do that as a writer, you can find how quickly you will become lost yourself.

Right. You know what I mean? Right. But you're right. He will hold the thread, and it will be elegant. Unbelievable. Like, elegant.

Like somebody dancing all the way through. No, and it's not just me, man. You know, I think any any you know essays anybody writes essays in this period who is not thinking of him um you're missing out um i don't know any you know black essays who are not somehow you know thinking of him i mean it's like a basketball player saying well i never thought of michael jordan right i'm modeling myself at the mic you know you come on you're crazy yeah i'm doing i'm doing my own thing no you're not you're not you know none of us who are in that tradition are doing doing our own thing you know and what was the time in france like i mean it was great i mean people often make

the ball and connection there but that unless it was something subconscious going on i haven't teased out yet that was actually my wife my wife loves paris uh-huh um where's she from? She's from Chicago by way of Tennessee, actually. But she- What does she do? She's a med student. Oh, good. Second year med student. Oh, really?

Yeah. Oh, that's hard, huh? So you're full on dad responsibilities again. Well, no, our kid's 17. So not like- Yeah. You know what I mean? You only got the one?

You only got the one, too. It was even when she decided that she wanted to make a career change um that was the second kid right there wow what kind of doctor is she thinking about being she's not sure she went in thinking obi-wan but she goes every which way right now yeah well it's her prerogative right it is it is and we'll see where it ends up but she um had this adoration for paris and she went for her 30th birthday and she wanted me to go with her, but I was like, I don't know what the hell I'm going to go to Paris for. I mean, this is how I thought. I wasn't well-traveled at all at that point. I didn't have an adult passport. What

the fuck am I going to go to Paris for? What's in Paris? You know what I mean? She came back and she was like, you really should go. You really, really should go. And I tend to regard her opinion about me you know rather highly so i can't see why i should go but if she says i should it's probably correct okay she you know at least you know you know she understands you yeah right yeah yeah yeah um and so you know i you know shortly after that well a little while after i began you know studying french and my you know we'd always wanted to you know our kid to have you know to be bilingual and so my son started and the only real way to get it is to you know live a year over there yeah i like to actually you know immerse yourself in it so it was really your choice you wanted to do something i did yeah i did i did and

i wanted it for him before he left the house i wanted him to have how old was he uh so he went over 14 when we left uh 15 15 when we left did he dig it uh not for the first three months and then he didn't want to leave oh yeah yeah yeah it was uh one of these situations so we got over he was supposed to be in his bilingual school and when we got there in fact it was not bilingual it was just french and he took the train there by himself took the subway came home and was absolutely horrified was scared out of his you know mind i looked at him i said listen to me in about three months you're gonna be thankful that no one's speaking english there you're gonna be like this is nothing to me i'm so glad i did this because that's how you build confidence sure like you have to have those fearful moments like you gotta and him being

in such a different situation than i was as a child, I've had to intentionally create fearful moments. You know, not dangerous moments, not physically dead, but fearful moments so that, you know, he's always pushing. Yeah. You know, pushing himself and, you know, like developing a moment. So you just mildly scared the shit out of your kid his entire life. I think you got to, man. If you ain't scared, I mean, if you're not,

if you don't have that in your own life, you're not, I don't, like, I feel like that's living. Sure. That's living. It's good to be a little nervous. On the edge. Right on the edge. Sure, man.

Yeah. Yeah. I'm about done with it, but I can't seem to get rid of it now. I can't seem to get rid of that edge. So he learned the French? He's pretty good. Yeah? He's pretty good.

And he had a good time? He ate good food? He did. He ate good food. We all ate good food. And you did some writing over there? Did some writing over there pretty good. Yeah? He's pretty good. And you had a good time? You ate good food? He did. He ate good food.

We all ate good food. And you did some writing over there? Did some writing over there, yeah. What are you working on here? What are you writing? Another book? I am. You just finished a book.

I did. I did. But that was a lot of essays. It was a lot of essays and it was mostly written. And then I wrote about half of it. And I have this novel that I've been working on since- No shit. 2000 and... Actually, since I finished the first book,

since the fantasy novel. Sort of. Yeah. Yeah. Sort of. Is it funny? Uh, not very,

not very. So where, how far into it are you? Uh, why are you really draft of it? So I'm, I'm rewriting right now. Oh,

did you give it to Christopher for, for notes? Uh, he has seen parts of it for notes. He had to see parts of it before they gave me a contract for it. And they signed off on it? They did. They did, remarkably.

I couldn't believe it. I know. Well, that's good. I'm glad that you're trying something new. But when you teach, because I know you teach a bit, when you teach journalism in terms of where we are. Because it seems like right now uh you know real journalism is definitely cranking it is i mean right alongside of you know shitty journalism yeah but it has a muse in donald trump that's right yeah it woke it up right woke it the

fuck up right and now more people are sort of like what what's what's happening yeah so when you teach journalism with such that urgency what how do you how are you different in how you teach it? So I'm mostly, you know, so right now I'm teaching at the J school at NYU. Yeah. Before that I was at CUNY and MIT before that. And I actually focus on writing. Uh-huh. I focus on writing because the kids I get, going to have NYU mostly have reporting experience already.

Oh, so they got the basics? Who, what, when, where, why? There you go. Who, what, when, where, why. Is that it? That's it. That's it. Don't ask me because I didn't take it.

I actually took no journalism courses. I love that. You dropped out of college and you're teaching college. I always like that story. Yeah. So that's how that story, that's how it ended up. That's how it ended up. The unprecedented kid from your neighborhood who drops out of college

is now teaching at college but yeah no so i um i try to i try to teach them like baldwin taught me yeah you know um i try to teach them to try to you know write with intent to write with aggression with ferocity uh on edge you know uh in a really really active way because i think like you know, write with intent to write with aggression, with ferocity, on edge, you know, in a really, really active way. Because I think like, you know, the reporting and the research is the assembly of the information, but you really, it really helps to know how to convey it in a way that people feel it. And who do you have them read other than Baldwin? Oh God, I just finished the syllabus the other day. Yeah. Oh, don't start me lying. Do you know I start off with poetry?

Yeah. Well, you have a deep relationship with poetry. Yeah, I start off with poetry because I want them to understand the efficiency of sentences and the efficiency of words. Who's your poet? Robert Hayden is on there. Colin Foshay is on there. Amiri Baraka is on there. Colin for Shay is on there. Um, I'm very Baraka is on there. Uh,

and then, you know, we, by the second week, we've actually moved into articles. Um, I have them read my colleague, Jane,

uh, James Fallows, uh, Caitlin Flanagan, who's at the Atlantic. I have them read, um, the great Elizabeth,

uh, Colbert. Yeah. A little bit of, um, Ian Parker, um,orge orwell orwell yeah but i don't have them read 19 i had to read our politics in the english language um that's great good selection no hunter s thompson no you know i've never read hunter thompson do you know that yeah that's all right no maybe it's not you know maybe i should i mean he's so influential you know i mean there's so many people who you know he could turn a phrase and he was

funny could he really sure okay yeah yeah yeah i've heard of that guy i would say like you know some people would do the i just you know i you know he's a certain type of journalist but in terms of writing with ferocity yeah you know fear and loathing on the campaign trail right and uh you know the book of essays the generation of swine in the 80s it's good it's it's it's funny i mean and it's you know and it's solid okay and it makes you go like oh yeah fuck yeah yeah but uh maybe not you but me now what did you learn from you know from david carr when he uh like uh because he gave you the first gig y'all never crossed paths did you no i missed him he would have liked you yeah he liked you a lot um he was a heavy cat yeah and he likes and i think

because this was his life he likes people who get the light later yeah yeah he's like that he's another guy like c students yeah yeah the underdog yeah Yeah, he loved that. Everything. I loved everything from David. I loved everything from David. I had the great fortune of meeting David Carr before he was David Carr, before he was at the New York Times as a recovering alcoholic, recovering drug addict. Where'd you meet him? In Washington, D.C., where he was editing an alternative paper

to Washington City Paper. Yeah. And I was 20 years old. And I would read the City Paper. And they would do these long articles that had the kind of creative mix that we started talking about at the beginning. Yeah. And I thought I wanted to do something like that. And I sent in an application to intern at the Washington City Paper.

And he brought me in. I had never, ever, like this is my first real contact with any amount of white people in mass. So it was like a different world. Like it was a totally, totally different world. You know, it wasn't traumatic. You know, like I didn't have bad shit happen. No, they were they were of the same species they were of the same species as it turned out this is what i've been

told yeah in fact they are in fact they are yeah and you know and david uh but you know i had to say like the racial thing was big actually but if i'm honest it was big for me because i think like having not like they're two they're different different kinds of black people they're those who grow up around white people have something traumatic happen to them and then they you know just feel you know what i mean a certain type of way about that and then those who don't grow around white people and just have no idea what to expect yeah just have no fucking idea. But know the history. And they're like, man, you've heard things.

You've heard things. That's exactly it. You've heard things. And that's always in the back of your head. It took like a couple of years for my God to drop. Uh-huh. You know, and even one of the sad things about David dying is I felt like it was not until so he passed in i think it was 15 he passed in 15 early 15 and i don't think i really got to the space where i could really accept him accept him

and the kind of love he was trying to give until like 2008 or so so it's like the last part of our friendship wow you know where i was much more open to him. Right. But you still, he still mentored you despite the fact that you couldn't be open to him. Oh yeah. Yeah. And I wasn't like, I was an asshole. Right. Right. Right. You know what I mean? But I didn't, I didn't, I wasn't, you know, I was so much, I don't know if you've ever had friendships like this where you're filled with your own insecurities and you see the person through that. Yeah, of course. Yeah. You know what I mean? And so you can't really really see i was out one time with him and this meant the world to me he used to call me up when i wasn't doing shit on that first year in new york he would take me to these fancy restaurants in manhattan

and i would think you know in my insecure way and he was at the times then yeah at the time yeah i think what in the hell yeah does this dude want to do with me yeah you know what I mean this white dude is in you know New York doing X Y Z I'm over here losing what does he want to do with me I didn't have enough to say

maybe he just likes me yeah I didn't have that like you know people like each other yeah right right and this is a thing they do for people they like

yeah they go out to dinner and talk they go out to dinner and talk yeah and he would you know take me and one time he took and I

my dad and my relationship with my dad had changed at that point because my son had been born and my dad was very very giving towards me whereas before i perceived him as being really hard he had changed he was like full of sympathy and compassion and i said jesse i can't understand why my dad keeps giving i don't i don't understand like i'm clearly doing nothing over here you know and he said to me said no i i think you're a good bet a good bet yes he told me he said i think you're a good bet and if anything kills me is that like he didn't get to see all of this no i mean he saw some of it but he didn't get to see yeah all of you really come into your

own yeah no um but you need people to say shit like that to you when you're down yeah you know that's great yeah do you still uh are you still in touch with the the uh last president i have not spoken with him since I interviewed him, which I guess is about a year ago. Yeah. You think you guys are okay? I think we're okay. Yeah, I think. I do know that. I mean, I know we're okay.

I've heard from other people. I know we're okay. I know we're okay. You're a little hard on him here and there. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But you know what? He is the sort of person that likes the back and forth yeah you know what i mean so i think he um i don't want to say he liked it yeah but he enjoys a

tangle and exchange you like to debate he does like to do the thinker he's a thinker that's right he is all right man so uh there's no uh no hope necessarily but i think we had a good conversation we did we did a lot of inspiration yeah man thanks so much mark okay i thought that was a great conversation it's great talking to that guy nice meeting him i'd like to talk to him again hey i should i should lay down a riff i can do it i can do it I should lay down a riff. I can do it. I can do it.

I can lay down a riff. I just, I want y'all to know that this is about the 90th take on this. I'm like, fingers are stiff. I'm not hitting it. And like, you think I was like,

you think I give a mess. Boomer lives. Oh, man. I just... Fingers are cramping up. The strings are dead. I couldn't wrap my... Oh, man. Boomer lives.

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